Alvarez-Mon Miguel Angel, Ojeda Carla, Lara-Abelenda Francisco, Asunsolo Del Barco Ángel, Fraile-Martínez Oscar, García-Montero Cielo, Fernández-Rojo Sonia, Quintero Javier, Ortega Miguel Angel, Alvarez-Mon Melchor, Mora Fernando
Department of Medicine and Medical Specialities, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Alcala, Alcala de Henares, Spain.
Ramón y Cajal Institute of Sanitary Research (IRYCIS), Madrid, Spain.
Front Public Health. 2025 Jul 17;13:1416171. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1416171. eCollection 2025.
Consultations and admissions for pathologies related to cannabis use are growing ininterrumpedly. The lack of public awareness of the risks can have a negative impact on our society, as well as on new policy proposals. In response, we set out to investigate social media posts about cannabis to better understand the online environment in this regard.
The study will analyze a dataset of tweets posted between 2018 and 2022, written in Spanish, that include the keyword cannabis, marihuana, or hachis. A total of 68,673 tweets were included in our study. A subset of 500 posts for each keyword was manually analyzed by a researcher to establish a codebook. Subsequently, Machine Learning techniques were employed to analyze the remaining 67,173 comments using the established codebook. Finally, 32,646 of the remaining tweets were excluded as they contained information unrelated to the objectives of this study.
Our research reveals a pronounced Twitter user engagement with cannabis, primarily centered on its regulatory and health dimensions. In more detail, 73.2% of the analyzed tweets were in favor and only 3.5% of the population expressed against its regulation, whereas only 20.4% of the tweets discussed the negative effects of cannabis on physical or mental health. Additionally, 30.1% of the tweets are in favor of the therapeutic use of cannabis, while 69.9% of tweets manifest neutral or against therapeutic use. Our findings also show significant differences on these topics depending on the user type and between consumers versus non-consumers.
This analysis of tweets about cannabis provides information on experiences and opinions related to its use. Therefore, the perspectives of Twitter users constitute valuable input that can help improve physicians' knowledge about cannabis and their communication with patients about its dangerousness.
与大麻使用相关的病症咨询和住院人数持续增长。公众对这些风险缺乏认识会对我们的社会以及新政策提案产生负面影响。作为回应，我们着手调查社交媒体上关于大麻的帖子，以更好地了解这方面的网络环境。
设计、设置与措施：该研究将分析2018年至2022年间发布的、用西班牙语撰写且包含关键词“大麻”“大麻制品”或“哈希什”的推文数据集。我们的研究共纳入了68,673条推文。一名研究人员手动分析了每个关键词的500条帖子子集，以建立一个编码手册。随后，运用机器学习技术，使用已建立的编码手册对其余67,173条评论进行分析。最后，排除了其余推文中32,646条与本研究目标无关的信息。
我们的研究表明，推特用户对大麻的关注度很高，主要集中在其监管和健康方面。更详细地说，73.2%的分析推文表示支持，只有3.5%的人反对其监管，而只有20.4%的推文讨论了大麻对身心健康的负面影响。此外，30.1%的推文支持大麻的治疗用途，而69.9%的推文持中立态度或反对治疗用途。我们的研究结果还表明，在这些主题上，根据用户类型以及消费者与非消费者之间存在显著差异。
对关于大麻的推文的这一分析提供了与大麻使用相关的经验和观点信息。因此，推特用户的观点构成了有价值的输入，有助于提高医生对大麻的了解以及他们与患者就大麻危险性进行的沟通。
